Meghan Markle’s awkward joke to Kate met with ‘yawning silence’ at Trooping the Colour

After Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, first joined the royals for Trooping the Colour she made a lighthearted joke to Princess Kate, but according to Prince Harry, it didn’t quite land

Trooping the Colour, or the King’s Birthday Parade, is one of the biggest events of the Royal Family’s calendar, and will mark the House of Windsor putting their best forward during one of their most challenging years in decades.

Both Kate and King Charles are currently being treated for cancer, and while the monarch’s medical team has cleared him to attend, Kensington Palace have not confirmed whether his daughter-in-law Kate will be in attendance.

The Princess of Wales has been out of the spotlight as she focusses on her recovery, but there are two other familiar faces that definitely won’t be present on the Buckingham Palace flypast: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Despite being regular attendees before they moved across the Atlantic, as non-working royals, the Sussexes won’t attend the ceremonial day of pomp and pageantry.

During the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, however, the couple did attend despite their new status, although they did not make an appearance on the Buckingham Palace balcony when the rest of the royals watched the RAF flypast and waved to the crowds below.

However, when Meghan made her balcony debut back when she first joined the Royal Family, things were a little awkward behind closed doors, as Prince Harry revealed in his bestselling memoir Spare.

Harry and Meghan on the balcony with Charles at Trooping in 2018 ( 
Image:
Getty Images)
The incident occurred back in 2018, only a few weeks after Harry and Meghan had tied the knot at a star-studded ceremony in Windsor. Once the royals had gone back inside Buckingham Palace after the flypast was complete, Harry claimed, Meghan tried to crack a joke with Kate but it didn’t quite get the expected reaction, instead leading to an awkward, “yawning silence”.

At that year’s event, Meghan stunned in a baby pink dress and matching hat, standing proudly next to her new husband who was dressed in his military uniform.

And while Meghan was seen chatting with Kate, William, and Camilla, Harry claims things were far more tesnse behind the scenes.

Harry writes in Spare that once they stepped back inside, Kate asked Meghan what she thought of her first Trooping the Colour and she replied: “Colourful”. While Meghan’s answer to Kate was simply a lighthearted quip, it didn’t get a very positive reaction, with Harry writing: “A yawning silence threatened to swallow us all whole”.

Harry detailed the awkard Trooping moment in his book Spare ( 
Image:
AFP via Getty Images)
The Prince used his book to share his version of the fallouts and tensions between Meghan and his family in the lead-up to the wedding, which likely contributed to the awkward feelings at Trooping the Colour that year.

He accuses Kate and William of “stereotyping” his wife, saying their behaviour created a barrier. He also alleges that his brother described her as “difficult”.

The Duke also details a row between Kate and Meghan at a bridesmaid dress fitting in the lead-up to the wedding and said Kate grimaced when Meghan asked to borrow lip gloss at an event.

Relations between the two couples seem yet to thaw, with William and Kate not seeing Harry during his last visit to the UK where he was celebrating 10 years of the Invictus Games.

However, after news of Kate’s health challenges was made public, it was reported that Harry and Meghan had privately “reached out” to William and Kate, and they also released a statement of public support for Kate and backed her appeals for privacy as she undergoes cancer treatment. “We wish health and healing for Kate and the family, and hope they are able to do so privately and in peace,” the couple’s statement said.

A version of this story was originally published in 2023.